Monday, April 03, 2006

Dear U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving

No, no, no, no, no.

I may be a little behind the times here, but the new ten dollar bill? Fugly. I mean, I thought the $20 was bad. But this? Wow.

Listen. Are you listening to me? Okay. Dark green and light orange do not go together. Ever. I understand you want the new bills to be all safe and secure and whatnot, but stop it. I can deal with the changed bust sizes, the watermarks, the security tape, even the new images. But the changing ink colours were pushing it (are we paying for groceries or attending a rave?) and the tiny 10s or 20s all over the new bills look like nothing so much as a contagious pox. And now this.

I understand that a lot of people have been really wedded to the old green and black bills. I know change is hard. But if you're going to do it, don't go all half-assed and try to appease the traditionalists, foil the forgers and get arty about it. If you're going to change the bills to several colours, just make them a brighter mix and be done with it. Hell, even red, white and blue would be an improvement. Or, even better, make it a practically a painting. I'm particularly fond of Tahiti's tender, for example.

2 comments:

I saw you'd blogmarked my site on blog explosion, so came over here to check out your site. I really like the way you write. This bill review would be perfect for a six line review on my site if you were interested - if you can get it down a bit. No one's reviewed the aesthetics of money yet....